Fic: Let me see you stripped down to the bone; 1/2

[teenwitch77]

Title: Let me see you stripped down to the bone; 1/2
Pairing: Multiple POVs, House/Cameron. Minor House/Cuddy, Chase/Cameron, Foreman/Thirteen.
Rating: PG
Summary: “Cameron’s down in the OR right now. I know that has to mean something to you.” House fic. 8,817 words.
Notes: So this is long. I broke it into two parts because I thought it was a hell of a lot to get through otherwise. I expect this to be my last House fic for a while, for various reasons, but I hope you enjoy it. 


PART ONE

It was by chance that he happened to be down in the ER.

He had taken to haunting its corridors - not because Cameron worked there, though she did aid in the discovery - but because it was actually a quiet place to think. The drab side corridors, home to spare gurneys and equipment trolleys, were rarely filled with people, and provided an uninterrupted environment in which he could mull over ideas, particularly when he was in no mood to deal with his team. He had room to pace, unobserved by curious passers-by, whose attentions were invariably drawn to his leg.

It was as he returned through the main room that commotion sounded from the laneway between the ambulance entrance and the ER. He could see the approaching gurney through the circular window in the double doors. A moment later the doors swung open, admitting several frantic staff accompanying what he assumed was an accident victim. He stood aside, waiting to see if the case looked remotely interesting. When he was an intern he’d had a suitable interest in the blood and guts side of things, though he got over it quicker than most. Rotations down in the pit never interested him all that much, unless he could furrow out a particularly unusual case in amongst all the mayhem, and attempt to solve it before his peers - or better yet his resident. But instead of indulging his long-standing compulsion, he got a glimpse of a familiar blonde head clasped rigidly in a neck brace. And everything around him dissolved.

"We’re going to need an OR," a resident shouted, looking twice when he noticed House standing nearby.

"What the hell happened?"

"Car accident."

House stared. She was barely conscious. There was blood on her forehead from a massive gash. Her clothes were bloodied and torn. She looked like a battered doll, patched back together with scotch tape. Some of the interns were clearly flustered by the situation, recognising Cameron, recognising House, but they tapered it down as they wheeled her into a trauma room.

The other doctor started barking orders at the interns, who set about checking her vitals and reciting her stats. Her injuries were a no brainier - crush injury to the abdomen and blunt force trauma to the head. House barely heard any of it. He kept his eyes on Cameron; or this battered, broken version of Cameron. She wasn’t real. Such an unprecedented event had no place in his reality.

"Dr. Cameron, do you know where you are?"

"Dr. Cameron?"

Her pupils were barely focused, but they flitted up and over, fixing indistinctly on his face. The fleeting instant of connection struck at some unexpected emotional centre. He stood by, motionless, as nurses and doctors rushed back and forth and Cameron stared at him with something resembling lucidity. What was there? Was it hope? Fear? He didn’t speak this language. He could only stare back, impotently wondering if this was her last attempt to make him understand her.

Then she groaned, and her eyes rolled back in her head.

"She’s crashing! We have to intubate!"

The task he could perform unthinkingly looked inhumane as the hand held ventilator was exchanged for a tube and thrust down her throat.

"We need to get her into surgery, now!"

The resident kicked the stand on the gurney and rolled it away from the wall. One of the interns shouted that OR 2 was prepped. They swept by, moving so rapidly he could barely hobble aside.

The resident he didn’t even recognise paused to spare him a warning look. "Dr. House, I’ll have to ask you to stay out here."

It was more an order than a request and he wondered where the hell this guy got off, telling him what to do in this hospital. His sense of indignation was short-lived because they were already plunging through the next set of double doors and down the adjacent corridor.

In the middle of the hall, House stopped. For the first time in his lengthy career he was stripped of his normal derisive certainty. He just stopped. He rarely experienced powerlessness in his profession, but he had never, ever, had his firm medical sense eroded by this raw, sudden dread for another person.

He honestly didn’t know if he should intrude on the surgery as he normally would, uninhibited by regulations and driven by his own impatient need to know. There were only a handful of people in the world who could induce such caution, and one of them had just disappeared through those doors.

"It’s been a long time since he opened up to someone."

"Damn it."

Cameron paused on her way across the parking lot. She had just escaped a long shift and her steps were light with relief, but the low growl of frustration was unmistakable. She could ignore it, but she often made it a point to show him that he didn’t intimidate her anymore. So she rounded the stretch of stationary cars until she was behind his blue Dodge Dynasty.

She found it symptomatic of his personality that he drove such an old model car when he could afford something much flashier on his salary - and she knew his salary. He defied all occupational stereotypes - specifically the flaunting of wealth that seemed to be a requirement among doctors of his rank and age. Her old self would have considered that proof of his pureness of heart, but her more jaded self recognised it an aversion to pretence.

"Everything okay?" she asked, unable to keep the slight edge of humour from her voice, because lightness infused all of their interactions these days. She wasn’t sure if it was intentional or not, but it acted to distance them from anything personal, while giving the illusion of intimacy to outsiders.

House looked tired. She rarely caught him in this mood and it was almost unsettling to see him so emotionally unguarded.

"Are you okay?" she added seriously.

"Lost my keys."

"Oh. Did you leave them in the office?"

The parking lot was empty and blue light cast its otherworldly glow over both of them. She couldn’t tell if it was the light or his exhaustion that made House’s face appear so gaunt. But his eyes were almost sunken, like those of a ghost. She bit her lip, watching as he grimaced like this was only the last in a long series of frustrations.

"You seriously lack in the girl scout department," he grunted.

"Okay. Didn’t leave them in the office." She folded her arms. "Do you want a ride?"

He didn’t even attempt to put up a fight. That should have been her first clue. "Yeah."

He matched his sloping gait to her shorter, brisker pace as they started for her car. For an absurd moment she imagined what it would be like to leave with him this way every evening. But people in relationships weren’t supposed to think things like that.

"Don’t get that look on your face," he added, when she gave him an appraising glance from behind the wheel of her car.

"What look?"

"That look like you have to tend a wounded puppy. This is not the window to a bigger problem, sometimes people just lose their keys."

"I didn’t say anything."

He squinted at her as she started the engine. "Right."

"I mean I don’t believe you, but I didn’t say anything."

He rolled his eyes, though it lacked serious conviction.

"So you had a bad day," she observed.

"My days are all bad days."

"So you had a worse day."

"Is this a counselling session now? Are we going to talk through my problems?"

"No. Just getting you to admit to it."

"Because you know me that well."

"I do know you that well."

It came out a little smugger than she meant it to - he made her self-conscious, so everything she said to him usually did - but he heaved a sigh and leant back into the headrest, which she took as a signal of compliance. Despite his sarcasm he didn’t seem inclined to disagree with her. Not tonight. There were those rare occasions he sought more from her than a bit of light banter or stimulation for a case. Sometimes he wanted to talk. For whatever reason, that softness he abhorred in the workplace seemed to appeal to a personal side of him.

"My mom called today."

"Oh," she said carefully.

They were so far removed from each other‘s worlds that flowers and a few passing words were all she had offered on the occasion of his father’s death. It was strange to hear him talk about it now.

"Apparently one of my dad’s old buddies is swinging through town and wants to look me up."

She could just imagine him indulging a request like that. His relationship with his mother was sound, from what she’d witnessed, but she doubted he would ever reconcile himself with his father now that the man was a memory. House was probably determined to distance himself even further, or risk tapping into any residual feelings of grief.

But she couldn’t see why such a request would bother him - or why this particular incident had warranted his confidence.

"It’s not like you know him. I don’t think it would even bother your mother if you said no."

"That’s not why he wants to see me. He wants to indulge some lifelong curiosity."

The ambiguity of this remark made her take her eyes off the road. "What do you mean?"

"Isn’t it obvious? It’s so cliché it should be in an after-school special."

It took her a while. Cars dipped their headlights as they sped by in the opposite direction and she focused on the motions of driving. House gave her time to gather her suspicions. They’d worked on the same wavelength for so long she could follow his cues, even when he was talking about something entirely non-medical.

"He’s your father," she guessed slowly.

"Give the lady a prize."

Cameron grew silent. She watched the neighbourhood pass by as she started to recognise darkened buildings. There were no possible words of comfort or wisdom she could summon for this. She got the feeling it was not a new revelation. House had been sitting on the knowledge for a long time. It explained so much about his interactions with his father; his disdain, his removal. His firmly held belief that he would never be accepted and that his accomplishments would never be enough. She could hardly narrow House’s issues into such a neat little box but this was a significant discovery. It was like shining a light on a dark space she’d never been able to see before.

It hit hard, because she sensed what a betrayal it was to him. No wonder he was so cynical. His whole childhood was founded on a lie.

When she pulled into a space in front of his apartment complex, light streamed in through the glass, infiltrating the shadows forming between them. She cut the engine and turned to him with a hesitant look on her face. When she’d waited desperately for him to share things with her, she’d been horribly disappointed. Something she had done over the last few years had made him trust her more than he did back then, when she was so open and naive, when she might have handled such a revelation differently. She was almost unprepared to deal with it now.

"You think I should meet him," he said gruffly. "You think it might fix some deep down inner pain and change me as a person."

"No," she said quietly. "You’re too messed up for that."

"Astute observation."

"If you’re asking for my opinion… I don’t think I would meet him. I don’t think you should have to suffer for his curiosity."

He was looking out at the rear bumper of the car in front of them, but he nodded slowly. It seemed he agreed with her advice. Which was a surprise. She was unused to having her opinions valued so openly.

"I’m sorry," she offered seriously. "I can’t imagine what it must be like."

"Don’t worry. Now you’ve got another chapter to add to your collection of ongoing personal sagas that explain why House is the way he is."

She rolled her eyes, though the dig seemed only half serious. It was more habitual than anything. A deflection. He was more predictable than he liked to believe.

"I don’t think like that, you know. I don’t view you as a puzzle to pick apart. I can actually care without having an ulterior motive."

He eyed her seriously. "I know." He scoffed. "That’s actually kind of the problem with you."

She was wondering what the hell that was supposed to mean when he drew his hand over her shoulder, and splayed his fingers under her chin. She reacted with the barest twitch before he bent forward, seat creaking, and pressed his lips against hers.

She didn’t expect it. His motives were certainly suspect and she wanted to draw away. She wanted to be able to say with ease and devotion that she loved Chase, and that she was over House. She was a completely different person and she didn’t feel a twitch, a shiver, of desire for him. But she felt her emotions trolling in reverse, incumbered by the unresolved nature of their relationship. That heady yearning for him would always be there, and he reawakened it quite fixatedly, as if he too, was aware of it; charging their daily interactions, their snipes and power struggles. She kissed back tentatively, and he didn’t push, or nudge her into something more forceful. He let her tread in with equal care, aware of their mutual power to destroy one another.

He kissed her like a blind man attempting to find his equilibrium. She could feel his mind working over, saying ‘this is Cameron. This is Cameron and there’s a reason I haven’t done this before.’ And yet he did it anyway. He seemed to need it. His lips moved over hers as he gradually tasted her. The rough fabric of his coat gathered in her fingernails before she even realised she was clutching him.

When he brushed forward to disentangle her keys, she didn’t stop him.

She probably should have.

"Do you love him?"

Foreman felt ineffective. He wasn’t used to the feeling. He didn’t relish it.

If he was at all honest with himself, he had been emotionally stunted most of his life. He’d learnt how to bluff his way through situations with enough charm that his emotional shortcomings became unnoticeable. In their profession, such shortcomings didn’t seem important - if anything they hindered results - and it was only around House that he’d really started to drop those pretensions. His personal relationships had suffered for it. But it hadn’t mattered, because it was all about the job. Being the best doctor he could be. It was only when he started seeing Remy that he actually cared about changing that part of his personality.

And now, in front of Chase, he really wished for more than his medical aptitude. So he didn’t feel so damn useless.

The two of them had shifted back and forth between friendship and scorn before settling at an awkward juncture in the middle, but he thought of the old team, Chase might be the one with whom he’d developed the strongest affinity. He and House were too different - or too similar - to ever have anything but the barest professional respect for one another, and he and Cameron had been through too many ups and downs to have any sort of salvageable friendship.

Nonetheless, Cameron meant something very important to him. No one could ever really understand what the three of them had been through with House. Sure, Kutner, Taub and Thirteen were experiencing his terrors firsthand now, but there was something different about those first years. Something that had irrevocably changed Foreman as a person and as a doctor.

The plush waiting room had never seemed so personal to him before now. He sat down beside Chase, awkwardly patting him on the shoulder. Chase looked utterly lost. He was still clad in his scrubs, which were horribly wrinkled from sitting around for so long. His eyes were bloodshot, and his growing stubble now made him appear haggard.

"She was on her way home," he said slowly. "Some guy went straight through a red light. Ploughed right into her."

Foreman had already heard the details from Cuddy, but he sighed deeply.

"She’ll pull through this."

"Don’t even pretend to know that. I saw the ER report. She had to be intubated."

"She’s strong."

Foreman looked over at the indomitable operating room doors, the ones that officiously barred friends and family. Suddenly they were trapped on the other side. "I heard House was there when she came in."

"Yeah, well, I haven’t seen him. Bastard probably can’t even bother coming back out of his office."

He thought it was the least House could do to come down and tell Chase what he’d seen, but he didn’t doubt the guy’s fondness for Cameron. He exhibited it in odd ways, but it was there.

"You know he cares about her."

Chase closed his eyes. "I honestly don’t give a damn what he does right now."

Foreman clasped his hands in his lap. There was not point challenging Chase on this. He looked up at the clock. The minute hand edged forward at a snail’s pace. He remembered something his mother said to him once about time standing still when you watched it. He’d watched a lot of clocks in his time - nervously waiting for his father to bail him out of lock-up, and later, tedious university lectures and staff meetings - but none of them had carried this imminent sense of fatality. He wondered if this was the kind of fear that had gripped Cameron when she’d acted as his medical proxy and ordered the procedure on his brain. He had no such responsibility, but he felt that if he looked away from the clock for a second, he would ensure some kind of future calamity. He needed to guard against every moment. Preserve time, in order for her to escape it fully unscathed.

He considered asking Chase if he wanted anything from the vending machine when Remy appeared on the other side of the waiting room. He was relieved to see her.

"Hey," she said quietly, looking sombre. She’d ditched her lab coat for her street clothes, and with her hands in her coat pockets she looked like an awkward little girl.

Chase gave her a brief nod and she responded with a smile. Foreman had wondered if the two of them might have something in common, considering their family histories, but they’d barely had the chance to get to know one another. He and Remy and Cameron and Chase had been out together once or twice, but it was a little too weird, the inter-office double dating thing.

"Can I talk to you?" she asked Foreman.

She looked strangely ill at ease. He followed her around the corner towards the bank of vending machines and pay phones.

"What’s up?" he asked carefully.

"I know this is a really bad time, but… I need to tell you something. I’m not sure if I should."

"Okay."

She had drawn in close, so as not to be overheard by anyone nearby, and it was making him uneasy.

"It’s about House."

"What does a guy have to do to make you hate him?"

Cameron wasn’t unused to guilt.

She had experienced it quite acutely throughout her adult life. When others started remarking on her beauty over her intelligence, and had awarded her privileges for it. When she didn’t love a dying man as much as she should. When she was the one left behind.

She had never done anything consciously knowing it would evoke the feeling.

It wasn’t in her nature to avoid. She tackled problems head on. She didn’t let them fester and grow into proportionally bigger problems. Unlike some people she preferred to be proactive about her life.

But for the first few days after sleeping with House, she avoided him. She made a special effort to bypass main corridors and she ate her lunch at the nurses’ station instead of in the cafeteria. It was pathetic, but she couldn’t face the hypocrisy of her own actions. They had crossed a line she had never really expected them to cross.

It was only after seeing him talking with an elderly man in the lobby that she let curiosity trump her other emotions. As she watched from across the room House separated from the man and disappeared into the clinic. She strode in after him, waving at one of the waiting nurses to hold off any coming patients, before following him into exam room one.

House looked up at her entrance and his expression immediately darkened. He liked being in control and she knew from painful firsthand experience that ambushing him rarely ever elicited a reaction she wanted.

She decided to get straight to the point.

"That man you were just talking to… He came to see you, didn’t he?"

House barely missed a beat. She could tell that he didn’t intend to get caught up in this. Whatever had happened, it wasn’t something he wanted to address. He couldn’t handle changes to his status quo. He opened drawers, ostensibly searching for some much-needed diagnostic implement.

"I know in your mind sex is associated with splurging your innermost secrets, but the two are not mutually exclusive, and no, I will not go to the prom with you."

"Funny, I remember the splurging happened before the sex."

It could be exhilarating parrying with him, giving back as good as she got, impressing him with her newly honed razor wit. But she had to stay the course. He disposed of a packet of thumb depressors, grimacing against her determination.

"He came to see me," he acknowledged. "Apparently some people can’t take no for an answer."

She ignored the jab. "What did he want?"

"To talk. Abolish his guilt. Whatever. I didn’t particularly care. I told him if he didn’t leave I’d have security earn their paycheck for once."

"Good call."

He eyed her dispassionately, finally turning from the set of drawers. She was aware of the electric current darting back and forth between them, new and intense after what had transpired, threatening to shock and fizzle if they drew too close.

House was stiff with hesitation. His awkward restraint was an unusual sight.

"You think so?"

"I already told you. His issues are his issues. It’s not your responsibility to pacify him."

"Good."

They paused. The amusement and indignation that usually drove their conversations was hampered by what had changed.

"Have you talked to anyone else about this?"

"No." He didn’t waver. "You were more than enough."

She didn’t really expect that. That she was to be his only outlet. The responsibility hinted at a flattering trust but she couldn’t allow it to progress any further.

"I should go," she said slowly, moving for the door.

Now that she had confronted him, House seemed less than satisfied to leave things as they were. He stepped forward to block her path. The exam room suddenly felt far more confining.

"You can’t have it both ways, you know. You can’t come in here to see how I am and then not deal with the aftermath."

It was an effort to keep her demeanour relaxed, the way he loomed over her. His warm breath puffed against her forehead, an angry exhale like a physical thrust. A flux of emotions rushed between them; uncertainty, annoyance, desire. She’d lost practice with these sorts of confrontations. Heart thudding in her chest, witless reactions on the tip of her tongue. She could handle him from a distance, with the job as a handy prop between them. But anything more intimate and she froze up. His nearness was heady; it obscured her common sense.

"I need to leave," she said, quietly insistent.

"Why?"

It almost broke her. "You know why."

"I don’t know, do I?"

He dipped his chin until his mouth lingered inches from hers. It was like he had been drawn back into this attraction about as suddenly and unexpectedly as she had and resentment dogged his expression, but it was overruled by his more immediate physical need. The lengthy pause was excruciating. Her lips parted as she willed her body to move away. But she was already affected by the same unavoidable paralysis she always was in his presence. She bridged the gap, kissing him through the burn of guilt.

There was a desperate kind of inevitably between them this time. He drew his arm around her waist, pulling her against him. She responded by wrapping her arms around his neck, drawing herself up on her toes to meet his height. The door was unlocked - a nurse or a patient could interrupt at any time. But they fumbled over each other, grasping at their forbidden interlude.

They knocked into the counter as they backed up. He nipped at her mouth, before foraying inside with his tongue. Touching him was both familiar and unfamiliar. They knew each other from that one night, but they also hardly knew each other at all, and they grappled to rectify that, to satisfy some of the yearning eternally present between them. How could one accident of intimacy satisfy what they had ignored for so long? She ran her fingers through the coarse hair at the back of his head, over his neck, opening her mouth to welcome the determined thrust of his tongue. The friction and warmth from the rush of his shirt against hers almost burned through to the skin underneath. She had to savour it; she had to. This couldn’t happen again.

"Dr. House --?"

The doorknob jiggled a moment; they flew apart.

A dopey looking teenager walked in, iPod in hand. He gave them a confused look, and Cameron discreetly wiped at her mouth as she edged towards the door.

"I need to, ah, get back to the ER --"

Her heart contracted from the loss of contact but she hurried out into the hall. She felt certain one of the passing staff would examine her and notice some piece of clothing disarrayed, or her lipstick smeared across her mouth. But they didn’t. None of them even looked at her.

She closed the door behind her. It wasn’t much, but it was a barrier. Holding her off from House.

Go to part two